holiday break

Merry Christmas to y'all. Keep safe, live well.

The Ape (ie me) shall be back surprisingly shortly, he bets.

Final Score Card of the Match

Well, after a painful six days, Stupid Writing Man has finally finished the current update of the current revision of the current draft of My Baby. In other words, he's typed up all the handnotes (which took about a week or so to write initially) and made additional changes, including writing a few new scenes cause his handnotes were "REWORK THIS ENTIRE SCENE". Sadly, there's a few places where I've got digital scriptnotes saying: "Do we really need this scene?"

I guess that means he beat Dr Cynic in this round, even if Dr Cynic is still cleverly disguised as Internal Monologue. Whether Stupid Writing Man wins this series remains to be seen, but I'm quietly confident.

More changes will possibly come over the next few days but they'll hopefully be minor. It really depends on how much influence Internal Monologue will be able to exercise over Captain Fragile Ego. Stupid Writing Man really does needs to finalise this draft, and send it out to some unwilling victims (any volunteers?), and possibly pay a script reader for some serious mindfucking notes. Why? Because I really believe in the importance of the drafting process... of drawing a line in the sand and completely reassessing everything with some distance and some seriously critical comments*.

Ergo, I'm hoping that Mr Rational will be able to convince Stupid Writing Man that the need for the above process is more important than trying to rework some not-so-great scenes endlessly... ie that: (a) the solution to the not-so-good scenes may be found via the drafting process because (b) there may [or may not be] more serious structural and style problems to be addressed and that these scenes may be symptomatic of those.

My brain hurts. I sleep now.

* I've already got notes on a possible direction I can take the next draft in. It'll require an almost complete restructure and rethink and I'm not sure if its the right decision**. Its just a possibility.

** I think one of the quietly unspoken dangers of losing your objectivity is a writer isn't becoming too precious, but not being precious enough. I think thats one of my biggest failings as a writer these days***, I can be throw away happy... which is why I've kept the problematic scenes. They may be problematic but it doesn't mean they should just go, as that may just the story royally.

*** Besides footnoting my footnotes and speaking in a fucked up first person narrative inconsistently****.

**** Thanks Internal Monologue... love Captain Fragile Ego.*****

***** Now that was just weird.

King Kong or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ape

(but not the movie)

King Kong was souless and often pointless spectacle. Ultimately, it was far less than the sum of its parts (of which there were some great ones).

Y'know that 'Droid Factory Chase' at the end of Attack of the Clones? Y'know how you sat there going 'wow, this sequence is like watching someone else play a computer game cause it has like zero emotional impact on the story or me!'? Yeah? Well King Kong has at least three sequences like that.

I'm trying to write more, but I can't because there's nothing really more to say. Its just a vapid film. Not bad but not great either - it possibly just scrapes 'good' (because of the good moments).

King Kong himself was the achievement, not the movie.

-- Smart Critique Man has spoken. Quake in his wake.

I'll leave you a quote from Rosenbaum:

The film rethinks the characters, turning the original's stark Jungian fantasy into a soulless but skillful set of kinetic and emotional effects.